Computer Chit Chat

Archive for the ‘Plugins’ Category

Did you ever see links in the comments of a blog? Ever wonder how to get them to appear there? If you want to show the last post of people leaving a comment on your blog, use the plugin Comment Luv. The plugin tries to visit the feed of your commenter’s blog and grab the title of their last post. If successful, when the person’s comment appears so will the name of their last post, along with a nice little link. The plugin is easy to use. Download and extract the plugin. Upload the file to your Wordpress plugins directory. Activate the plugin in your Wordpress dashboard and you’re ready to go. There’s no picture for me to include with this one, because there’s nothing to configure. It couldn’t be any simpler to use. I use it on almost all of my blogs and I love it. Do you use Comment Luv? What do you think of it?

• How to install a Wordpress plugin
• How to close comments on your blog
• How to keep up with your Wordpress plugins

Have you ever seen a post on a blog that has a little checkbox at the end that said subscribe to comments? For anyone who isn’t sure what that means, I’ll tell you. If you check that box you’ll get an email notifying you when new comments have been made on that post. It’s a neat way to promote interaction with readers and other blog visitors. If you’ve wanted to offer the ability to subscribe to comments on your Wordpress blog, it’s easy to do. All you have to do is offer the Subscribe To Comments plugin by Mark Jaquith.

To install it, unzip the file and upload it into your wordpress plugins directory. Activate it. Go into the Options section of your Wordpress dashboard. To get it working right away all you need to do is fill in the name you want the subscription messages to come from and the email that should be shown as the sender. You can customize the messages, but the default ones make enough sense to me as they are. That’s it, you’re all set. Let me know how you like it if you try it out.

• How to show someone’s last post (and some love) on your blog
• How to close comments on your blog
• How to thank first time commenters

If you have a blog and you sell ads of any type, you should check out OIO Publisher if you haven’t already. I wrote a review of this Wordpress plugin about a month ago. I recommend it highly, it’s an invaluable tool for managing ad sales directly right from within your Wordpress dashboard.

Recently the OIO Publisher plugin was upgraded to version 1.6.0 and added some great new features including the addition of an ad queue so people can buy ads in advance, an upgrade alert system, the ability to use html, integration with the ViralBlogAds network, and the capability to place ads on any website by using a javascript code.

This plugin is regularly $37 but for a limited time, I’ve been given two coupon codes to lower your price of the OIO Publisher plugin.

This coupon is HOT! Use code QWERTY-17 to get $17 off of the OIO Publisher regular price of $37, bringing the price down to $20. This coupon expires in the next two days (@ 05/05/08) so take advantage now. At $20 this plugin could pay for itself within one or two sales, so if you’ve even thought about buying it now’s the perfect time to do so.

If you can’t buy within the next day or so you can still save some money off of the regular price. Use code QWERTY-5 to get $5 off of the OIO Publisher regular price of $37, bringing the price down to $32. This coupon expireson 05/20/08.

If you’re serious about selling your own ads this plugin is a must have, so hurry and take advantage of the coupon codes before they expire.

• How to manage the ads on your blog
• Godaddy coupons
• How Dragon Naturally Speaking increases earnings and pays for itself

Do you have sell advertising on your blog? Wouldn’t you like an easy and efficient way to manage the ads? If you would, then you need to get OIO Publisher. OIO Publisher is a Wordpress plugin designed for managing blog monetization and sales. If you’re like me you might have kept track of things in a spreadsheet, or in your email. OIO Publisher makes it a whole lot easier to manage advertisers right from your blog’s dashboard.

Once installed you can sell and manage different types of advertising including banner ads, links, rss feed ads, inline posts and reviews. You can even set up custom advertising options. All ads can be either do follow or no follow, and you can adjust your price depending on which one you choose if you like. After configuring the ads you want to sell just install the code for the ad spots, either in the code or by widget, and you’re ready to go. When a potential advertiser clicks on one of your open spots they’re presented with an advertising page. (This is mine if you’d like to see what one looks like.) This awesome plugin even lets you create your own built in affiliate program.

After making your purchase, not only do you get this great plugin, but you get support from the creator Simon, who’s already helped me twice. You also get to list your blog in the marketplace where advertisers look for places to buy ads. Your advertisers will like it because if set up they can geo target their ads, and they will be sent a report summarizing their ad performance. OIO Publisher sells for $37 and is worth every cent. The time you will save using it will make it pay for itself in no time. Let me know if you’re using it or if you start using it, and how you like it.

• OIO Publisher on sale for $20
• Do you follow? I do follow.
• Want to better manage your Wordpress comments?

Installing a Wordpress plugin is fairly straightforward. First, download the plugin that you’ve decided you want to use. In most instances the file will be a zip file. The next step is to unzip the file. If you don’t have the software to do this you can use programs such as WinZip or 7Zip, as well as numerous others. Now upload the unzipped file into the plugins directory of your Wordpress blog, which is located within the content directory. The last step is to log in to your Wordpress dashboard and activate the plugin.

If you’re a Cpanel user there’s another way to install a plugin. Log into your cPanel and upload your zipped plugin into your Wordpress plugins file. After uploading it, click on the zipped file you just uploaded showing on the left and then click on the extract link on the right. After that just log into your Wordpress dashboard and activate the plugin.

That’s it.

• How to install Wordpress using cpanel 11 on your own domain
• How to keep up with your Wordpress plugins
• How to show someone’s last post (and some love) on your blog

If you use Wordpress and want to add the ability to view similar posts at the end of a post then this plugin is for you. I have recently done this on this blog, as you might have noticed if you’re a regular reader. Implementing it isn’t too bad but will require a little fidgeting with your code. Here’s what you’ll need to do. Download the Similar Posts plugin. Install the plugin into your Wordpress plugins directory, and activate it through your Wordpress dashboard. Now it’s time to place the specified code into your theme where you want the similar posts to appear. The plugin page contains easy to understand install instructions, as well as a link to an article on modifying themes from Lorelle on Wordpress. I suggest you make sure you’re backed up before installing the code, just to be safe. Then read the instructions (and the Lorelle piece on modifying themes if you need it). Then try it. Make sure this is the only thing you’re altering at the time, so if something happens you know exactly where you were and what you did and how to reverse it. I had to move mine three times before I got it where I wanted it. Once it’s installed and appearing where you want it you can administer its behavior from within the Wordpress dashboard. Here’s a screenshot of the control panel.

Some of the aspects you can control with the output of the plugin include how many similar posts are shown, if you want the current post included or left out of the results, if you want the results to be from the same category as the current post, categories that should be included or excluded and authors that should be included or excluded. Let me know if you implement it on your blog and how you like it.

• How to add a print option to your posts
• How to show someone’s last post (and some love) on your blog
• How to find out how many words are in your post

Want to include a contact form on your blog? With CForms, it’s easy. I have it installed on all of my blogs. Here’s how you do it.
Go to http://www.deliciousdays.com/cforms-plugin and download the plugin.
Extract the plugin and upload it to the plugins directory of your blog.
If you upload the file zipped into cpanel and unzip it there you’ll get a folder named contactforms that will have cforms within it and will need to be moved, so better to extract it before uploading.
Activate the plugin in your Wordpress admin area.
You will now see cforms up in your Admin menu.
At the form name area, enter the name of the form you’re creating.
The form will come with some fields preformatted. If you need more, click on the add another field button or the +1 button, depending on which version you’re using. For example, I wanted to add something to help fight spam. I created a field that has to be named visitor verification to work, and chose visitor q&a (the captcha isn’t always legible).
Redirection, messages, text and button all pertain to letting a visitor know if they’ve successfully sent you a message or if their attempt failed.
Core form admin is where you enter your email, where your messages will be sent.
Auto confirmation will show the sender a confirmation email that their message has been sent.
When you’re all finished configuring the options, just save it.
Now to make the form live, place the code within your page.
Those are the basics of how to place a form on your blog.
There is another tab that permits you to customize the appearance of your form.
The plugin also has a terrific help tab as well if you get stuck.
Let me know if you use it and how you like it. I’d be lost without it.

• How to find out how many words are in your post
• How to switch from Outlook to Thunderbird
• How to change the author name in Wordpress

I found a Wordpress plugin that allows me to offer a print option on every post. The plugin is called WPPrint and it’s free. I downloaded it from Lester Chan’s site at http://lesterchan.net/wordpress/readme/wp-print.html and uploaded it to my server. At first I installed it in the index php file as per the instructions, but didn’t like seeing print this post on the pages. I only wanted the print this option to appear within the post. So I moved the code to the single php file and it appeared exactly where I wanted it. In the Wordpress dashboard, under Options Print, you can do some configuration, including choosing to include comments, links and images, custom disclaimer or copyright text and selection of printer icon. If you want to see it in action, go over to my right sidebar on this blog and click on Fun, Crafts and Recipes. It’s one of my other sites and I post new recipes and the like every day. Now there’s a way for people to print the recipes and have them come out looking nice. Go check it out, it’s quite useful.

• How to save money on printer supplies
• How to make an announcement in Wordpress
• How to let your readers subscribe to comments of a post

I often get an idea for something I’m going to write but am not ready to publish yet. On my blogs I usually have one or more posts in draft with different ideas and things I think I’ll want to write about. The problem with this system is it that it sits there as a draft and takes up another post id. Well, there’s a Wordpress plugin for just this type of thing. The plugin can be found at http://ink.bur.st/wordpress-plugins#kin and is called Khanh’s Instant Notepad.

Once you’ve downloaded the KIN zip file, upload it to your Wordpress plugins folder. Activate it in Wordpress. Now you will notice an additional option in your Wordpress menu. When you click on it, a large notepad opens in a second window. Besides the title field and the notepad itself, you are also able to choose an author if (for those of you with multiple authors on one blog). That’s it. It’s pretty simple, if you have questions there is documentation inside the plugin folder of your Wordpress.

• How to write your first post in Wordpress
• How to change the author name in Wordpress
• How to add a print option to your posts

I recently learned of a plugin for Wordpress that once activated will send an email to your blog’s first time commenters. It can be found at http://www.justinshattuck.com/comment-relish/ and it’s called Comment Relish. It’s easy to install and use. Once you’ve downloaded the zip file, install it into the plugin directory of your wordpress folder. Activate the plugin in Wordpress. Set your preferences on what you want the email to say. Currently, mine are set as

Hi %AUTHOR%,
Thank you for dropping by valmg.com and commenting on %ARTICLE%.
In order not to miss upcoming interesting articles, please feel free to subscribe to my RSS, either in a reader or by email. The links to do so are in the top center of my blog.
I hope to see you more often at my blog!
Thanks again for dropping by!
Regards,
valmg
www.computerchitchat.com

Available options are inclusion of the comment author’s name, comment author’s website, comment author’s email, the name of the post commented on, the comment posted, the comment id, your wbesite’s rss feed and four versions of the date.

I really like it and started using it because I wanted to personally thank everyone who takes the time to comment on my blog.

• How to show someone’s last post (and some love) on your blog
• Want to better manage your Wordpress comments?
• Want to show your blog visitors some love?